Denver is at a fragile turning point, and this week we learned that the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce has seen unsustainable turnover in the last year, losing 28 of its roughly 60 employees – half its staff — since the summer of 2024.
We are concerned.
Two reporters with the non-profit, online news agency Denverite interviewed 18 people close to the Chamber about the exodus and found a troubling and recurring complaint about a “toxic culture” fostered by the Chamber’s CEO and president J.J. Ament.
That is not five people raising concerns, or even 10, but out of 25 people successfully contacted by the reporters at Denverite, 18 expressed concern. The other seven individuals described their time at the Chamber as positive or neutral. Several people were so adamant about their experiences that they bravely used their names to back stories about the bad behavior of one of the most powerful men in Denver’s business community.
And on top of that, Ament’s control at the chamber is so poor that changes to the renowned training program – Leadership Denver – led to three of 50 members of the foundation resigning in protest to what Paul Lhevine described in a letter to the Chamber as changes that do not “honor the mission we have been fulfilling for decades.” Lhevine was not one of the individuals interviewed for the Denverite story.
Finally, the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade cut ties with the Chamber over what China Califf, the leader of the Small Business Development Center, described as concerns over the negative culture at the Chamber. Shortly after Califf resigned, the Small Business Development Center was moved from the Chamber to Red Rocks Community College.
That is a lot of smoke coming from the Chamber at a time when this city needs steady leadership that inspires confidence, not controversy.
The chair of the Chamber’s board says he is happy with Ament’s tenure. Mowa Haile told Denverite that the problem is a controversial but necessary restructuring of the organization, not Ament’s leadership or demeanor. Ament began requiring a 5-day in-person work week, and the Chamber’s vice-president for customer experience, Cayti Stein, said that change is what drove off a number of employees.
“The Board has confidence that the direction charted by J.J. and the leadership team best serves our members and the entire Metro Denver business community, as evidenced by the significant growth in membership over the past four years,” Haile wrote in response to questions from Denverite.
We can certainly imagine employees being disappointed about a return-to-office policy, but half of the Chamber’s staff left in the course of 15 months, Denverite found. Many Americans would be skeptical that, in this economy, so many people would be willing to leave a stable job over having to return to the office, no matter how difficult the commute or their personal circumstances.
More credible are employee stories about Ament’s abrasive leadership style, stories that Ament denies, calling himself a collaborative leader. The stories included allegations of: telling an employee who was later demoted and fired for insubordination that he didn’t care for her at a holiday party, threatening to fire employees in front of their peers, and an employee who said the organization failed to adequately address an incident where she was exposed to a nude photograph of a male colleague.
The city’s Chamber of Commerce is far more than just a marketing tool for local businesses, and now more than ever, Colorado needs the heart of downtown to thrive. The Chamber owns and rents the building it occupies. Like other landlords in downtown, it is struggling to break even despite growth in membership, relying on its foundation and other external organizations to balance the books.
While membership is certainly an important measure of the Chamber’s success – after all, those members pay the dues that keep the Chamber running – we are confident that the Chamber can find a leader who will support businesses and drive investment in the Chamber without driving off half of the staff.
Sign up for Sound Off to get a weekly roundup of our columns, editorials and more.
To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit online or check out our guidelines for how to submit by email or mail.